I won't doubt your credentials based on what your experience... certainly is more than mine. Not sure how you know Amazon is or isn't profitable, but that's neither here nor there I guess.
Certainly seems like, based on what you described, that the businesses are not as efficient as they should be or could be without an increase of personnel. Certainly they have lost business, as you've shown. I would suspect that is a somewhat consistent pattern.
I could only guess as to the rationale, but it's their business so I guess they can choose how they want to execute it. But, from the description, it doesn't seem to be effective.
Mike